Just curious as to how many (if any) of you got started in geocaching because you just "happened upon" a cache and went to the website address to find out what this was all about? I would imagine most of us got into geocaching because someone told us about it, our friends or family do it, or because we read about it somewhere, but I could be wrong.

Read an article about it in the Mpls. Strib, and with our orienteering experiences and love of the outdoors- thought it would be a good retirement activity- and is had been- both setting and finding caches._________________LIFE IS GOOD;CABIN LIFE IS GREAT

Beleive it or not the book "the Davinci Code" got me started. I was at the author's website and found out there is a puzzle on the back cover of the book. It lists co-ordinates and asks what national monument is near them. I had no clue as to how to use co-ordinates so did some google searches and found Geocaching. Sadly I got so interested in caching I forgot to go back and work the puzzle.

I've known about caching for awhile - it must have been some geeky news source I'm sure right around when it was starting up. I forget exactly where and when I first heard of it. Either way, I ignored it for awhile. When I was chatting with some people about it, I found out that a friend, Frozen132 had done it. He and his girlfriend eventually took me and a friend on our first geocaching trip. I bought my own GPSr that weekend and have been caching since. My friend, on the other hand, never got into it.

I seem to recall my first intro to geocaching was about 2 months ago, when I went online to the Garmin website to download a manual for my boyfriend's eTrex. Somehow, he lost the original manual and wondered if he could get one from their website. I became curious about what it is that you could do with these things, so then I Googled for stuff on GPS's. One of the links that came up was to a page about geocaching, don't remember which site came up, but I read for awhile and it sounded like fun.

So then I looked around online for Minnesota geocaching and got to this website, and to geocaching.com. Showed up at KB's Geo 101 event last month with my boyfriend and his eTrex, and KB showed us how to enter waypoints. I went out and bought an eTrex of my own, and I've been having a ball ever since. My son's been having fun going on cache hunts with me, too.

I guess we must hide these things pretty well, since I have yet to talk to someone who has found out about the hobby from just happening upon a cache.

I can;t remember, it was several years ago I came across geocaching, just never did it for awhile. I probably came across it when I was looking for free mapping software (was going to make a car computer).

I signed on to gc.com when I came across an arcticle in Outside way back in 00--back then, I think there were only 3 or 4 caches in the state, including Alvin's Phone Line (still active) and Rebecca's Garden (archived). As far as people starting after finding a cache by accident--my first cache was at Carl's Lake near Lakeville, and it would disappear for a few days, then reappear with a log stating that someone found it by accident, took it home, opened it up and saw what it was, and then put it back--the 2 or 3 times that happened, the people said that geocaching sounded like fun, and they were going to check it out, but I haven't heard any more from them._________________There comes a time in every young boy's life when he gets an irresistible urge to seek buried treasure.--Mark Twain